Final Report Summary - NAMASTE (Thermodynamics of the Climate System)
The climate is a complex system transforming potential into kinetic energy as a thermal engine, generating entropy by irreversible processes, and keeping a steady state by balancing the thermodynamic fluxes with the surrounding environment. The climate can be mathematically described as a non equilibrium and multiscale system, featuring variability on a vast range of spatial and temporal scales.
The NAMASTE project has studied the global structural properties of the climate system in order to construct a unifying framework for studying climate variability and climate change. This goal greatly contributes to defining reliable metrics for the validation of climate models.
The NAMASTE research team has adopted sophisticated tools borrowed from thermodynamics, statistical mechanics, deterministic and stochastic dynamical systems theory, and extreme value theory taking also advantage of a complete suite of models of varying complexity, ranging from those able to represent few climatic processes, to comprehensive general circulation models.
Climate-related problems have proved to be of great inspiration for developing mathematical and physical concepts of wider relevance for complex non equilibrium systems, so that NAMASTE has obtained relevant scientific results also in areas apparently distant from traditional climate science, such as statistical mechanics and the probabilistic theory of extreme events. The interdisciplinary nature of NAMASTE has led to strong interactions and exchanges between the research team and world-leading experts in geosciences, mathematics, and physics.
The main scientific results obtained by the NAMASTE research team can be summarised as follows:
a) Definition of a radically improved framework for studying the entropy budget of the climate system, and derivation of simplified formulas that can be used for computing efficiently the entropy production of general circulation models.
b) Understanding of the lack of energetic consistency in the state-of-the-art climate models considered in the IPCC report.
c) Theoretical development of a new point of view on climate change based on statistical mechanics and provision of climate change projections.
d) Definition of new framework for constructing parametrizations for unresolved processes in models of geophysical fluids. Such a framework is based upon methods of statistical mechaniser and dynamical systems.
e) An extensive investigation of the properties of the hydroclimatology of the Himalayan region with accurate evaluation of the performance of global climate models in representing the monsoonal circulation.
f) Definition of a comprehensive mathematical/physical/geophysical theory of extremes. We have covered the full conceptual range from the mathematical theory of stochastic processes, to the properties of observables of chaotic dynamical systems, to the use of the theory in a geophysical context.
The outputs of the NAMASTE project have had a strong impact on various scientific communities (geosciences, statistical physics, applied mathematics) and have attracted interest also among planetary scientists, because the theoretical framework developed in NAMASTE is extremely
promising for investigating Exoplanets. The NAMASTE team has intensely disseminated the project's results by publishing numerous papers in top international journals, by contributing through oral and poster presentation in conferences and workshops, by visiting many research institutions around the world.
The NAMASTE team has organised many international training and dissemination events in the form of workshops, summer school, sessions in international conferences, and has contributed witnessed the beginning of many promising scientific careers and new scientific projects.
NAMASTE has provided a high-profile contribution to the "Mathematics for Planet Earth 2013" international initiative by playing a leading role in the organisation of the 2-month scientific programme "Mathematics for Fluid Earth at the Newton Institute (Cambridge) in autumn 2013. This event has seen the participation of some of the very top-class scientists in geosciences, statistical physics, extreme value theory, partial differential equations and has been key to launching multiple research and education activities aiming at bridging the gap between these disciplines.
The NAMASTE project has studied the global structural properties of the climate system in order to construct a unifying framework for studying climate variability and climate change. This goal greatly contributes to defining reliable metrics for the validation of climate models.
The NAMASTE research team has adopted sophisticated tools borrowed from thermodynamics, statistical mechanics, deterministic and stochastic dynamical systems theory, and extreme value theory taking also advantage of a complete suite of models of varying complexity, ranging from those able to represent few climatic processes, to comprehensive general circulation models.
Climate-related problems have proved to be of great inspiration for developing mathematical and physical concepts of wider relevance for complex non equilibrium systems, so that NAMASTE has obtained relevant scientific results also in areas apparently distant from traditional climate science, such as statistical mechanics and the probabilistic theory of extreme events. The interdisciplinary nature of NAMASTE has led to strong interactions and exchanges between the research team and world-leading experts in geosciences, mathematics, and physics.
The main scientific results obtained by the NAMASTE research team can be summarised as follows:
a) Definition of a radically improved framework for studying the entropy budget of the climate system, and derivation of simplified formulas that can be used for computing efficiently the entropy production of general circulation models.
b) Understanding of the lack of energetic consistency in the state-of-the-art climate models considered in the IPCC report.
c) Theoretical development of a new point of view on climate change based on statistical mechanics and provision of climate change projections.
d) Definition of new framework for constructing parametrizations for unresolved processes in models of geophysical fluids. Such a framework is based upon methods of statistical mechaniser and dynamical systems.
e) An extensive investigation of the properties of the hydroclimatology of the Himalayan region with accurate evaluation of the performance of global climate models in representing the monsoonal circulation.
f) Definition of a comprehensive mathematical/physical/geophysical theory of extremes. We have covered the full conceptual range from the mathematical theory of stochastic processes, to the properties of observables of chaotic dynamical systems, to the use of the theory in a geophysical context.
The outputs of the NAMASTE project have had a strong impact on various scientific communities (geosciences, statistical physics, applied mathematics) and have attracted interest also among planetary scientists, because the theoretical framework developed in NAMASTE is extremely
promising for investigating Exoplanets. The NAMASTE team has intensely disseminated the project's results by publishing numerous papers in top international journals, by contributing through oral and poster presentation in conferences and workshops, by visiting many research institutions around the world.
The NAMASTE team has organised many international training and dissemination events in the form of workshops, summer school, sessions in international conferences, and has contributed witnessed the beginning of many promising scientific careers and new scientific projects.
NAMASTE has provided a high-profile contribution to the "Mathematics for Planet Earth 2013" international initiative by playing a leading role in the organisation of the 2-month scientific programme "Mathematics for Fluid Earth at the Newton Institute (Cambridge) in autumn 2013. This event has seen the participation of some of the very top-class scientists in geosciences, statistical physics, extreme value theory, partial differential equations and has been key to launching multiple research and education activities aiming at bridging the gap between these disciplines.